Ken Jones
AN OLD saying goes: When the cat is away the mice will play. In kinder, gentler times this referred to the behaviour of mischievous rodents and cats with nine lives. In rougher circumstances it relates to rapacious rats and a cat with nine tails.
For those who do not know, the cat-o-nine is a fearsome instrument played on the backs of men found guilty of committing crimes of a serious nature. A whip that was one of the disciplinary tools of choice in the 18th century, it was constructed of strands of heavy cords with knots along the length and at each end. The very thought of it could scare a man nearly to death; and its application would certainly scar a man for life.
Flogging as punishment for crimes dates back centuries ago and was introduced in Jamaica by English property owners who used a form of the cat to lash disobedient or rebellious slaves. After Emancipation the practice continued and was used throughout colonialism and even after the attainment of self-government. One notorious use of the cat-o-nine involved Professor Brown whose crime was practising obeah. The police in a sting operation had used a woman to engage Brown's services and when the damning evidence was collected he was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to prison with nine lashes at the beginning and another nine at the end of the term.
Even in today's outrageously violent environment, nobody of sound mind would suggest a return to this cruel and inhuman form of punishment. That would be like burning down a house to kill termites. Still, there seems to be a case for reviving corporal punishment, using the strap, the paddle, the tamarind switch or some other acceptable rod of correction judiciously applied. There are many who believe that our society was in error when we systematically abandoned the injunction recorded in the book of Proverbs: He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
THE ROT
The rot began when we took away from our teachers the authority to guide and instruct our children in a climate where experienced trainers enforced the rules and those in training observed and acted with due respect. The effort of guidance counsellors alone has worked no better than corporal punishment alone.
In the generation of my boyhood no able-bodied child in home or school was exempt from corporal punishment. We were all subject to a sound and appropriate thrashing as the ultimate price to pay for disobedience, failure to respect time, refusal to fulfil obligations and for straying along pathways leading to moral decay or physical destruction.
Spanking caused no permanent hurt, but helped to prepare us for a demanding world of challenges to be faced as adults. We took our medicine like boys and it wasn't even we the children who complained. There was no problem with the blistering bottoms until the bleeding hearts arrived to engage in philosophical discourse.
I have yet to meet one of my boyhood companions who suffered any psychic or physical impairment because of a few strokes properly applied to the seat of learning. In fact we are inclined to acknowledge being better because of the chastisement.
As in everything else, there were guardians who were too heavy-handed, but the minors who became monsters weren't those whose rumps were switched, but those whose rumpus went unpunished.
ALARM AND CONCERN
The terror now engulfing our schools was recently summed up by the president of the Jamaica Teachers Association. He said the level of indiscipline and violence in some schools must be viewed with alarm and concern.
He wasn't complaining just because in the two weeks before he spoke three students were killed by their peers at school. Student violence and immorality have long been glaringly evident, not only in schools but in buses, on the streets and at venues for sport and recreation. Teachers are on the defensive and it is a waste of time appealing to parents for help, because so many of those bringing up children are themselves spoilt products of the permissive age. Also, is it a mere co-incidence that the rate of crime and violence is lower in countries where corporal punishment is approved and practised?
Singapore had caning in the statue books before and since attaining independence in 1965 and it was noted that between 1966 and 1973 armed robberies tripled and the country was facing a serious problem of gangsterism. Caning then became mandatory for certain offences and since then figures from the United Nations Centre of International Crime Prevention show Singapore with perhaps the lowest rates of violent crime in the world.
BANNED
In 1986 corporal punishment was banned in England's state schools and since that time many opinion polls have shown the general public in favour of its return. In January 2000 the Times did a poll among 1,000 parents and 51 per cent favoured corporal punishment in schools.
Nearly two years later 61 per cent of the participants in a TV show spoke for the right of teachers to give corporal punishment to unruly pupils and not long afterwards, of over 6,000 persons in a Teletext poll, 97 per cent were in favour of a return to corporal punishment. The trend tends to increase with the growing pressure that criminals are putting on the law abiding population.
This doesn't mean that the world supports corporal punishment for the hooligans who are meting it out to the rest of us. Jamaica, although having its own peculiar problem continues to talk as if corporal punishment is nothing but raw brutality. In fact it can be administered calmly, carefully and with proper rules and conditions.
Pity that some who should know better are joining in the chorus of pleas, casting their literature, lectures and food for thought before the herd that refuses to read anything worthwhile and takes its cue from questionable role models. What we reap today is the result of a gradual chipping away of the rules, regulations, restrictions and retribution that ensure a civilised society.
One final note. Singapore's only crime upsurge in 30 years happened when there was a decline in the economy. The message here might be that while we are crying about crime in Jamaica we might pay more serious attention to the poor state of the economy and hold accountable those responsible for its long and continuing deterioration. Maybe the trouble with Gordon House is that the cat is away.
Ken Jones, general secretary of the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs,
can be contacted via email at
alllerdyce@hotmail.com
